Laser Beam Shaping

For recent industrial materials processing with advanced high power lasers, beam shaping optics are utilized as a key technology. Aspheric or diffractive beam shapers transform a Gaussian intensity profile of a single mode (TEM00) laser beam into a flattop one. While an aspheric beam shaper can make a circular flattop, a diffractive one can realize much flexibility in output beam shapes, like square, rectangular, linear, or other…

Keiji Fuse

Page 19-22

Process Control

Laser beam brazing and welding are well established joining techniques in the automotive industry; in particular for the body in white production. These processes are mainly used to join two‐piece trunk lids as well as to connect the roof and sidewall with a visible seam or to weld doors in steel or aluminum. Hence, the requirements upon the optical appearance of the brazed seams are very high and quality monitoring is…

Laser additive manufacturing is state‐of‐the‐art and regarded as a key technology in the future of production engineering [1]. Originating from a computer model, a new freedom of design can be achieved by simply adding layer by layer. Beyond the new perspectives and extended possibilities of conventional processes there are fields of application which already have been opened up. One of those is the highly innovative but…

Laser Welding

Laser remote welding is a dynamic and flexible joining technology which enables various new approaches in welding sequence and weld position planning. However, the challenge is to find the optimal set‐up within this large parameter space. In this article, numerical welding simulation is used to deal with this challenge. For a car door, different welding sequences and weld positions were numerically analyzed and compared…

Due to high productivity and potential for cycle time reduction, Laser Remote Welding is gaining more and more attention particularly in automotive manufacturing and its tiered supply base. In a typical industrial setup, component tolerances are a major challenge to the usage of laser remote technology. The difference between programmed beam position and the actual component location can only be compensated by complex and…

In the vehicle industry, beam welding methods are successfully applied for the joining of high‐quality parts. Here, the focus is mainly put on drive section components. Especially in component manufacturing of couplings, toothed wheel — shaft joints and drive shafts, electron beam welding using small vacuum cycle chambers is applied. The application of powerful solid‐state lasers results, however, often in negative…

Uwe Reisgen, Simon Olschok, Stefan Jakobs, Michael Mücke

Page 42-46

High Power Laser Systems

High power laser systems are making their way into more and more industrial applications. From cutting steel, to drilling via holes in silicon, to marking plastic, a whole range of processes now make use of the laser to produce results not previously practical. Advances in fiber lasers in particular, with their scalability, beam quality and wall‐plug efficiency, have made laser beams with powers of many tens of kilowatts a…

Mark Slutzki

Page 47-50

Laser Direct Structuring

3D‐Molded Interconnect Devices enable the placement of electronic circuits on three‐dimensional plastic components. The following article breaks new ground in order to add reasonably to existing 3D‐MID procedures. An essential aspect was the shortening of the process chain of the conventional MID procedures through laser‐direct structuring. Thus the metallising steps are no longer necessary and a 3D circuit carrier…